Let’s Talk About the Music

‍

Behind the Beats: How The Music Makes It Into Your Releases

1. The track you teach has been on a long journey

Music selection starts 10–12 weeks before filming, with Creatives and the Central Music Team (CMT) curating a pool of tracks they can clearly imagine elevating a movement, effort, or emotional moment in the workout.

From there, it’s a cycle of solo listening, group listening, refinement, and real-world club trials. Feedback continues to shape the playlist – maybe the moves don’t flow, or maybe the sound leans too heavily into one genre – until the whole team is confident it’s right.

Behind the scenes, there’s also a serious challenge: finding tracks that fit the moves, have appropriate themes and lyrics, haven’t been used before, won’t clash with other programs, and can be fully cleared for licensing. In fact, the longest journey to clear a track took two years.

2. There’s more music than ever – which makes choosing harder, not easier

The music industry has changed dramatically. In the space of a decade, available tracks have grown from tens of millions to hundreds of millions. Streaming playlists have replaced radio schedules, and while breakout hits are statistically rarer, they’re bigger than ever at the top.

Artists now collaborate globally, often without ever meeting in person. Tools like DJ software, sample packs, and beat libraries mean more people can create music faster – and AI is about to accelerate that even further. While having so much choice might sound like a luxury, in some ways it actually makes the task harder.

To put the scale into perspective: listening to everything on Spotify would take over 665 years of nonstop playtime. Choosing the right track for a workout is no small task.

3. When the perfect track doesn’t exist, we build it

Sometimes, no commercial track delivers exactly what a workout needs. That’s where the Les Mills Artist (LMA) program comes in.

The LMA program brings together a global collective of producers, DJs, and composers who work directly with Creatives to build tracks from the ground up. These aren’t generic songs – they’re crafted specifically to match the energy profile of a class, whether that’s driving power in a peak track or sustaining focus through a conditioning block.

This work happens at Aesium Music House in Auckland, a purpose-built studio designed to support artistry and collaboration. It’s intentionally separate from the office environment, giving Creatives and Artists the space to experiment, refine, and create music that truly supports the workout experience you deliver on the floor.